The election results for the European Parliament will start coming in at 5pm Eastern Time (22:00 British Summer Time).

Many voters all over Europe are making their choices today, in the UK the voting was on Thursday.

Polling shows the United Kingdom Independence Party at about 30 percent popular support in spite of an intense campaign to discredit it by the major parties and the media.

Everything from the race card to the employment of UKIP leader Nigel Farage's wife as his secretary has been thrown on the wall in hopes of something sticking.

The immigration police just happened to raid the business of a man identified as a UKIP supporter one week before this election.

Many of the people in England have woken up to the fact that all the major parties including the one that calls itself "Conservative" have been selling them out to the European Union and letting the immigration faucet go wide open.

People in the UK are now having their say against the political establishment including the Conservative Party Establishment that deposed Margaret Thatcher from power in 1990 because she stood up for British sovereignty and the Pound against the EU and Euro......

(I HAVE LINKED TO THE BBC VOTE 2014 PAGE WHICH WILL BE FOCUSED ON THE LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS THIS AFTERNOON, THEY DO NOT SHOW THE NATIONAL ELECTION STRENTGH OF UKIP, BECAUSE UKIP IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH YET TO FULLY CONTEST THOUSANDS OF LOCAL SEATS IN ENGLAND)

The post of returning officer is an honorary one, and is the Sheriff (ancient honorary title) of a County, or the Chairman of a local Council. The actual duties are carried out by an 'acting returning officer', the Electoral Registration Officer, who is usually the Chief Executive of the local council. The duties are supervised and monitored by the Electoral Commission, which sets performance standards.

Returning officers are appointed by the local council, but their duties as returning officer are distinct from their duties as a council employee. They are highly trained and their duties are very strictly defined - you shall do this, you shall not do this, you must do it at this point and not at this and so on. If you've ever seen the results of British elections being announced you'll have seen them. Usually nondescript sober men who stand up and say "As the duly appointed returning officer for the district of wherever, I hereby give notice that..." Even what and how they say that is circumscribed by law.

Representatives of political parties have the right to be present at each stage of the verification and counting process and they are legally empowered to challenge any part of it. Such challenges MUST be accepted and suspect votes investigated. Such representatives can also challenge the decisions of the returning officer. His or her decisions are final, but if Representatives feel they are being grossly negligent and/or corrupt they can make formal complaints.

Because returning officers have to sign the official secrets act, if they are found to have been dishonest in the execution of their duties, they go to Gaol. No ifs, buts or whyfors.

By mistake on their part I meant if there was a mistake in the register, or if someone had checked the wrong name off. Duplicate votes would require more checking.

No system is perfect of course, but we dont have the gross abuses that Americans on these boards frequently assert the US electoral system suffers from.

“The post of returning officer is an honorary one, and is the Sheriff (ancient honorary title) of a County, or the Chairman of a local Council. The actual duties are carried out by an ‘acting returning officer’, the Electoral Registration Officer, who is usually the Chief Executive of the local council. The duties are supervised and monitored by the Electoral Commission, which sets performance standards.”

Very interesting, and your comfortable that this ‘sheriff’, ‘Chairman’ or ‘Chief Executive’ of a local Council has no political inclinations whatsoever? I don’t know a lot about British political institutions but I’m not so such i would be as comfortable with the non-corruptibility of such positions as you.

That was a post for an age when men believed in honor and acted accordingly, but that age is sadly coming to a pass where today men(Namely leftist) are increasingly inclined to find their political ends justifying their very much dishonorable means. Are you quite sure this could not take place in Europe among theses ‘officers’ because the system you described to me seems quite filled with potential should theses men not be so honorable today as their ancestors.

Not that I care about British Elections but thank-you for enlightening me regarding the detailed enforcement of your electoral integrity.

As a matter of note American elections are carried out by States here, and thus you may say we have 50 different elections going on at the same time. Of which there is only gross abuses in a few states.
That is of course not counting the unavoidable abuses that is a direct result of Federal usurpation such as the 1993 Motor voter[fraud] act.

We can’t have but two major parties in Federal elections due to the fact that most states are winner take all, and the electoral collage requires an absolute majority less the election goes to the house.

Little more to add in response to this than Vanders9’s comments at post 44. Of course no human institutions are perfect, and there’s no absolute guarantee - but in practice the scrutiny of the count is such that it would be very difficult for a returning officer to play hanky-panky and get away with it, even if he wanted to. Also worth noting that the Electoral Commission, the independent supervisory body to which returning officers are accountable, is itself accountable to Parliament, not Government - an important distinction.

“Also worth noting that the Electoral Commission, the independent supervisory body to which returning officers are accountable, is itself accountable to Parliament, not Government - an important distinction.”

Indeed it is an important distinction. Existing ‘elected’ politicians directly judging the results of their own elections. I suppose that is better than having the ‘king’ do it but im not sure how in the light of the present climante.

Still if your allowed to watch the investigation at every stage and for every vote Then hopefully you may at least have an alarm to know something is wrong. That is indeed better than we have in some states.

“Wouldnt most US election results look like that, if you separate out the big cities? Wed have NY/CA/IL if only we could separate out NYC, SF/LA and Chicago.”

Probably, which is why even Thomas Jefferson lamented how cities tend to corrupt the souls of men. It is perhaps a result of the way people treat each other in cities believing they shall not have to worry about dealing with one anther again they do nothing to defend or even be decent to their neighbor.
Instead people live in a world where they suspect everyone of being a potential threat rather than a friend.

The big city corrupts the soul of men, just as it overwhelms the mental capacity of people to appropriately deal with the community around them.

George Wallace won states without a majority of the popular vote as a third party candidate and got all their electoral votes in 1968.

The candidate that wins the most votes in a state will get all its electoral votes and perhaps there would be a deadlock going to the House, perhaps there wouldn’t.

Perot the third candidate for president could have won outright when he rode high in the polls in 1992, then he pulled out of the race for a few weeks and started saying crazy things. He had to tamp down his support so Clinton could win.

Perhaps, although UKIP did OK in other areas where there are signifiant muslim communities. No, there are more likely reasons. It’s partly because UKIP London isn’t as well organised as some other areas, but mostly because London is THE home of the UK’s political, social and cultural elite. Our equivalent of the Washington village, that little bubble of very clever enlightened intellectuals who are oh so much better able to run our lives than we are.

I dont know the particulars of US elections either, I'm just basing my comment on the fact that whenever such elections are in the news a substantial number of people on these boards moan about "the dead voting" and various other electoral inconsistencies.

“The Telegraph in the UK says its because Wilders linked himself to Marine Le Pen and the National Front in France instead of Nigel Farage and UKIP.”

Seems to be an interesting dynamic going on with the European right. The NF leans towards the more traditional, nationalist, sometimes quasi-fascist “far right” of Europe, but UKIP seems to have eschewed that in favor of something closer to American conservatism. I think this is the first time that we’ve really seen anything like that in European politics, and the fact that they are succeeding is a good sign.

I think if they continue to succeed, they can push out both the far right groups and the “moderate” left, “Christian Democrat” type parties. Hopefully, they won’t make the mistake of falling in with those groups just to form coalition governments, since that could be disastrous. They’ve got to make the old way of thinking obsolete, not be seduced by it.

Well, we can have more than two, but not for long. The only time we really see more than two gain any ground, historically, is in times of transition, when one party was going extinct and a new one was supplanting it. I don’t think that ever lasts more than one or two federal election cycles though.

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